To take part in discussions on talkSFU, please apply for membership (SFU email id required).

Calculus Distance Ed

edited March 2014 in General
Would it be a bad idea to take Math 150 (Calc I with review) as a distance ed course for this summer? 

Comments

  • Do you need the course or are you taking it as an elective? Do you have prior calculus experience?

    If you have never done calculus before I would not recommend taking it online unless you truly believe you will have the willpower to devote the time to it you will need to in order to pass.
  • If you don't have prior experience in Calculus, I highly suggest not doing it through distance ed unless you really need to. 

    Calc is a hard course, you need help from Instructors and TA's to do well. 
  • I did all my calc in 8:30am lectures and with the commute that sure as hell wasnt the right way to go.

    When I retook it I used khanacademy and a textbook solution manual to practice. I dont know what the dist ed offering is like, but based on my experiences I wouldve probably tried it if it were available
  • I think the distance offering is actually pretty good. I believe there are a bunch of video lectures.
  • edited March 2014
    I took 150 online since I can't get myself to go to an 8:30am class. Overall it was well organized. Material is delivered through video lectures, there are also notes provided. The notes have blanks in them so you fill them in as you go through the videos. Total video time per week is generally less than 150 minutes so you get more "lecture time" if you attend class (this is true for most DE classes). Exams are similar to old exams available online so there are no surprises there. If you're a relatively disciplined person and you don't depend heavily on workshops or office hours, DE should be ok for you.

Leave a Comment